Numerical Simulation On The Fatigue Life Of All-steel Radial Tire

The fatigue durability of tires has great influence on the driving safety of vehicles. In the high-speed driving, the sudden fatigue failure of tires will result in serious traffic accidents. For the all-steel radial tire, the fatigue failure is more likely to occur because of the poor working condition. Therefore, the relevant national regulations have made mandatory requirements on the fatigue durability of the all-steel radial tire, and only the qualified tires can be sold in the market. Tire companies are forced to increase their spending on R&D to enhance the quality of tires. Currently, experimental methods are the main approach to measuring the fatigue life of tires; however, it is time-consuming, which seriously restricts the development efficiency. With the rapid development of computer performance and the continuous improvement of the finite element method, it is possible to study fatigue life of tires by using finite element simulations.One type of all-steel radial tire is chosen as the research object. Based on the fracture mechanics, local crack models are established in the fatigue failure risky location of the tire by using the global-local technique in the finite element software ABAQUS. Then, the fatigue life of the tire is predicted.Firstly, a finite element model of all-steel radial tire is established, namely the global tire model. After the simulations of the tire inflation and the radial load, the tire is loaded to the free rolling condition by using the steady-state transport analysis in order to simulate the laboratory high-speed endurance test.Secondly, according to the simulation results of the finite element model under the free rolling condition, the local crack model is analyzed to determine the specific location at the belt edge region. Based on the global-local technique, the local models of different crack sizes are established, and the J-integral in the crack region is calculated.Finally, according to the J-integral calculation results, the fatigue life of the tire is calculated by using tire fatigue life formula, and the result is compared with the lab test result, which demonstrates the validity and rationality of the simulation result. In addition, in this work, the influences of different tire structures on the tire fatigue life are also investigated.Obviously, finite element simulation will provide technical support for the increase of tire fatigue life effectively. However, heat will affect tire fatigue life significantly. So, heat generation in the process of tire operation will be taken into consideration in the following study and the accuracy of simulation analysis will be further promoted.